Riders’ carnage a warning to entire CFL
SERIOUS INJURIES
WINNIPEG • The news came like an approaching storm from the west, sending bolts of lightning across the CFL.
Four members of the Saskatchewan Roughriders tore their Achilles tendons. On the same day. During the same drill.
It happened on Thursday, and you can bet it has the coaches and training staffs of every other team going over their own return-toplay plans as training camps officially open on the weekend.
To have even one player tear an Achilles is noteworthy. To have four within minutes of each other is unheard of, and only underscores the enormous unknown of returning to football after a 20-month absence.
Two of the Riders hurt were projected starters: linebacker Larry Dean and defensive lineman Freddie Bishop, both high profile free-agent signings.
Also sidelined long term are defensive back Nelson Lokombo, the second overall pick in this year’s draft, and running back Jonathan Femi-cole, a sixth-round pick.
As Riders GM Jeremy O’day put it, a trainer wouldn’t even be finished dealing with one player when another would go down.
All four, their seasons done before they even began.
O’day and Saskatchewan head coach Craig Dickenson gave the gruesome news to the rest of the team via conference call, with O’day apologizing to the players.
The scope of the carnage goes far beyond what Winnipeg Blue Bombers head athletic therapist Al Couture had grimly predicted coming out of the pandemic layoff.
To prepare for camp, Couture spoke with colleagues in the NFL and NHL about the rate of injuries after long lockouts or strikes. He didn’t like what he heard.
“It is concerning when you look at injury statistics for leagues that, regardless of the sport, that have had lockouts and the injury stats aren’t pretty,” Couture said a couple of weeks back. “We have more injuries after a bye week than we do if we just keep going. So time off, I’m not a fan of, statistically. And this is one big piece of time off.”
Couture’s concern was only magnified by the number of older players on the Bombers roster.
He planned a slow ramping up of intensity in order to reduce the chances of players pulling or tearing hamstrings, tweaking knees, ankles, shoulders — the usual football ailments.
But the Riders, we’re told, had a similar approach.
So what went so horribly wrong? And is it a sign of things to come in every other CFL camp?
Word around the league is the Riders were doing a drill with medicine balls that involved sprinting and cutting.
Coaches weren’t involved, but training staff was supervising.
“It’s surprising to hear they were going full speed in their supervised workouts after the players had been locked down for the past couple of weeks,” one person from another team told me. “Really feel for those players.”
Players around the league reported to their teams in early July and had to go through a quarantine period if they’d travelled.
People around the league are not only questioning the nature of the Riders’ drill, but the lack of intervention after one or two, or even three players went down.
The whole, sad affair raises the possibility the pandemic could have far-reaching and lasting ramifications even after the last virus infects anyone.
Bombers defensive co-ordinator Richie Hall predicted some older Cflers wouldn’t be able to make a comeback from the missed 2020 season. He said some would age out of the league.
In Saskatchewan, Dickenson predicted some surprise cuts to players who didn’t stay in top shape.
Others have simply retired rather than put themselves through the rigours of another camp and the pandemic protocols that come with the 2021 season.
It appears others will be taken out by more painful means.
“Over a year off is tough for a football player,” longtime coach Mike Kelly, the former Bombers head man, said via Twitter on Friday. “Difficult to replicate sport specific movement in training with the same intensity and explosiveness as you have in camp. My guess is you’ll see more injuries over the next 2 or 3 weeks than we’ve seen in a long time in camp.”
Having no pre-season games and a shortened, 14-game campaign puts more urgency on getting up to full speed quickly.
If what happened in Saskatchewan repeats itself, even on a smaller scale, in another city, we’ll be left wondering if a return under these conditions was even worth it.
Let’s hope the Riders and others learn from it. This can’t simply be the cost of doing football business, post-pandemic. The players deserve better.
As former Bomber John Rush put it via his Twitter account: “Praying for my brothers out there.”